Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Followers of Indian
Cricket are well experienced to witnessing losses – yet today’s performance
hurts badly ! .. .. .. What Umpire Pashchim Girish Pathak did in
Vijay Hazare Trophy, John Ward who is known to him followed at International
level.

It is a prolific
scrub-type tree and is often one of the first species to regenerate on cleared
land. Heard of ‘Leptospermum scoparium’,
commonly called mānuka, New Zealand teatree, a species of flowering plant in the myrtle
family Myrtaceae, native to southeast Australia and New Zealand. Australia’s 18th consecutive win
was achived at Manuka Oval, located in the suburb of Griffith, adjacent to Manuka,
a business district of Canberra, Australia's capital. The site of Canberra was selected for the
location of the nation's capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney
and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities.

Batsmen are
dominating one-dayers like never before ~ Indians would not disagree. At Perth, Rohit Sharma hit 171* followed by
124 at Brisbane; at Melbourne Virat Kohli made 117 and today at Canberra –
Shikhar Dhawan made 126 and Kohli 106 -
Chasing a tall 349, Indians were 277/1 off 37.2 – a simple win beckoned,
which Indians messed up losing wickets at 277; 278; 286; 294; 308; 311; 315
& 323 – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. All centuries made by Indians went in vain
this Series. A very inept batting performance !

Today Australia
batted first and India were chasing.
Kohli and Dhawan shared a 212-run partnership for the second wicket and
required less than a run a ball before John Hastings claimed the wickets of
Dhawan and MS Dhoni (0) with the score on 277. It triggered a flurry of
ill-disciplined and reckless strokes from India as they threw away what would
have been their first win of the series. Kane Richardson joined the party with
5-68, including the key wicket of Kohli, who spooned a catch to Smith at mid-on
just after Dhawan's departure. Without injured headliners Mitchell Starc and
James Pattinson and with Josh Hazlewood rested, Hastings and Richardson
executed one of the great escapes in recent ODI memory.

At a time when
batsmen were making merry, the Umpires searched for greater protection, with
John Ward becoming the first umpire to wear a helmet in an international match. His colleague, Englishman Richard
Kettleborough, was taken off the field and replaced by Paul Wilson after being
hit on his right leg by an Aaron Finch straight drive in Australia's innings
against India. John David Ward from Melbourne made his debut in an ODI between
Australia & England at Brisbane in Jan 2014.

John Ward wearing helmet as Bhuvi runs in

On Dec 1, it rained
cats and dogs in Chennai, Tamil Nadu played Punjab in a Ranji trophy match at
Dindigul. Ward was hit on the head by a shot
from Punjab's Barinder Sran - a part of the current Indian squad in Australia. Ward fell down and remained motionless for a
few minutes. The whole crowd gasped and stood numb in shock for a while, till
Paschim Pathak, the square-leg umpire, and the players raced towards Ward. Soon an ambulance was driven inside the
boundary ropes too. It took some tense
minutes before the ambulance could start on its way to the nearest
hospital, which is 30 kms away, but thankfully Ward was seen to be back on his
feet by this time. Pathak a few days later wore an helmet in a league match of
the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

If there is a fact
on which there cannot be any criticism whatsoever of MS Dhoni, it has to be his
inexorable defense of his teammates, who have consistently let him down in the
past few years. For long, Dhoni has copped all criticism that has come Indian
cricket team’s way, but never has he taken the backseat and let his men take
it. Dhoni has weathered all the storms, even though the undoing was not by him.
It is a sad reality that the team is
doing very little for facilitate Dhoni leaving on a high. A dejected Dhoni announced
shocking retirement from Test cricket, and the team is not backing him enough.